Play of the Day

I believe the girls have moved INTO their Calico Critter Mansion at this point. The negotiations between who owns what bed and which animal, blah, blah, something about bunnies blah...rivals the toughest real estate transactions I've ever witnessed. Their play with their "town" of equipment is so fine-tuned, they barely speak as they play. "Addiction" is too small a word...

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Laughing In The Rain

My “You Must Be Joking” Face, captured by my best friend after we hauled hundreds of pounds of bounce house inside during a rainstorm at our school fundraiser.

The figurative rain has been falling since the turn of the year. I think it’s time to start laughing again.

Yesterday’s “Adventures In Apartment Living” Entry:

You didn’t think the huge bulldozers, bugs, bad wiring, and a busted pipe were the end of the story, did you? I mean come on guys…we’re on a ROLL here. I’m clearly in the eye of some kind of Universal Hurricane, designed especially for my enjoyment. Don’t give up your front row seat just yet, because yesterday…

THE TORNADO CAME.

I’m not being dramatic. A tornado rolled through Indy in the mid-afternoon. The reason we take tornadoes so seriously is not just because it’s a Hoosier rite of passage to witness the destruction they cause, but also because our storms tend to produce more than one at a time. Rather than getting a tornado a half mile wide, we tend to get several, smaller touchdowns. If you hear of a funnel cloud forming, chances are, a storm is over you that could produce a tornado right before your eyes. The girls and I were pulling into our neighborhood when we heard the update on the radio, and while the tornado was just south of us, the storm system was on top of us. We didn’t even grab our lunches from the car. We just RAN.

If you recall from pipe-burst day, my cable was due for an upgrade, so I was told to expect a team of people to show up anytime this week, somehow sense from the breeze when this exact time would occur, move half of my furniture, clear out 2 closets, and “take care of my pets”. By the way things have been going around here, I should have fully expected the cable team would be inside my apartment when the tornado came. What can I say? Fate loves a good theme. We dashed inside our apartment and strangers yelled from my upstairs bedroom, “BRIGHTHOUSE CABLE! CABLE IS HERE!”

Me: Yes, I know! A tornado is here as well! There is a tornado touching down in Speedway right now! Do I have a working TV?

Cable: Yes! (And the sounds of 2 technicians running down the stairs.)

Me: I’ve got the news on…looks like there are cloud walls and scud clouds all over town. Crap. (Counting in my head there are now 5 of us in my living room, and only one, tiny interior closet.)

[Insert a sweaty 3rd Cable Guy showing up in my living room.]

Me: My God! Where did you come from?

Cable Guy #3: Your attic.

[Insert 4th Cable Guy magically appearing.]

Me: Attic as well?

CB #4: Yes.

Me: Is that it?

CB #2: No.

[Insert 5th Cable Guy, who has apparently been inside 100 degree attics all day, walking into my living room.]

CB #3: Did you know the field behind your house is covered in gigantic, industrial equipment? Look at the size of that…is that a bulldozer?

Me: Yes, I have learned that it is indeed, a bulldozer. And it’s LOUD, but not nearly as loud at that wood chipper over there. That thing to the left can snip down trees taller than this apartment like a pair of scissors. (Noticing his face looks a little pale.) Are you thinking if a tornado hits, those gigantic things are going to be thrown into this building, and it would only have to lift one to kill us all?

[Insert five cable guys running out my front door. Solving the problem of how I was going to create safe shelter for 8 people in an apartment with no basement, one interior closet, 2 cats who have been hiding for hours, which has a perimeter lined with the biggest bulldozers I’ve ever seen.]

Me: WOW. Where do they think they’re going to go in a tornado?

Kelly: Maybe they’re playing a game of “Get The Old Grandpa”.

Me: What?

Kelly: It’s like playing chase, but instead, we pretend we’re trying to take a family photo, and the Old Grandpa keeps running away, and we all chase him. SO, I guess it’s like the opposite of chase, because Old Grandpa is it, and we all chase that person, instead of one person chasing everyone else. CATCH THE OLD GRANDPA!!! (Kelly giggling uncontrollably). It’s so much fun.

Sara: KELLY! I doubt they were playing a game you made up with your friends DURING A TORNADO!

Me: I guess we should be grateful the wasps didn’t get them up in the attic before the tornado did. When you think about it, their entire day was just fraught with danger. This apartment should really have a warning posted on the door.

[Fast-forward to this morning.]

We are safe, and while homes were damaged (via an RV which catapulted through a tree and landed on the roof of a house, and then BOUNCED OFF!), no one was hurt, and this amazingly resilient apartment is still standing. I awoke to the sounds of huge trucks at my back window, and a cable guy knocking at my front door. Ah yes…all is as it should be. Now if you’ll pardon me, I have cable wires strung across my doorways, every piece of furniture in my living room has been moved, a nice stranger is spackling my hallway, and the contents of 2 closets are out on the floor. Good Morning You’all. Good Morning Fate (wink).

2 responses so far ↓

No. Seriously NO! This is all unreal. How on earth are you doing this? First I laugh so hard, and then I can visualize all of it and it is not funny, but then again it is. You have found there is no other way but to laugh. That seems to be the ticket for escaping this wonderful, cheers filled apartment! What a storm of a summer. Let’s hope this is IT!!!!

Seriously, it just keeps getting better and better. The irony is that we rarely find the get and and go to leave. The girls and I are pretty much hunkered down inside, trying to avoid random lighting strikes or something!! I keep telling myself we’ll be laughing about this summer FOREVER, so it will be worth it.